


Prometheus Rising

by Thelittlescrimshaw



Series: Gods and Monsters [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 06:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11708796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thelittlescrimshaw/pseuds/Thelittlescrimshaw
Summary: In this moment, in a fit of absolute madness and absolute clarity, he knows one truth: he cannot let her die.





	Prometheus Rising

**Author's Note:**

> This was my piece for the Reylo Short Story Collection. You can find that (and the beautiful artwork done by om-nom-berries) [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx8dPrfOck6yQ25QOV8xM0tLd1E/view#_=_)
> 
> You should go check it out!!! It's an amazing addition to the works in this fandom :.)
> 
> Beta'd by dasfeministmermaid on tumblr (if you like this, go thank her - she's the reason it's not total garbage!!)

_You dream of an ocean…_

His own words come to haunt him at night. It has been weeks since the incident on Starkiller, weeks since the failed interrogation, weeks since the sand-rat had wormed into his head and ransacked his innermost thoughts, ripped right through his defenses and delved deep into the shadow complex of his mind. Sometimes she was quiet; sometimes, he could forget. But sometimes…

The weakest of triggers could provoke a reaction.

She was a Pavlovian parasite, rearing her head at the most unconditioned of stimuli.

Like now, in his dream: he knew it was not his own consciousness that was conjuring up the vision before him. It was not his skin that the rain fell on, and it was not his eyes that saw the tumultuous sea before him.

He looks down. Sure enough, the hands are small and worn, tanned, and unmistakably not _his._

_Get out of my head!_

It’s faint but defiant. Kylo wants to respond, wants to lash out, wants to grab the scavenger by her throat until she’s blue in the face and demand answers.

But he can do none of this; he is not his own person in the land of dreams. Instead he gives a silent scream, trapped in a mind that is not his own, unable to find the _where_ or the _when,_ entirely subjected to waiting in the shadows of her psyche until he’s released.

He wakes up on his cot in a cold sweat, fists clenched so hard he’s drawn blood. He yanks the stained sheets away and stares down at himself.

In the cold light of the med-bay, his blood looks black.

He finds himself staring at it for quite some time; it occurs to him that the only thing that is his own is his blood.

* * *

Although Kylo can feel him in his mind, The Supreme Leader is strangely absent, distant as a star.

_You dream of an ocean…_

His own words come to haunt him at night. It has been weeks since the incident on Starkiller, weeks since the failed interrogation, weeks since the sand-rat had wormed into his head and ran had been dumped in a med-bay and told to heal quickly and wait for further instruction. _Hurry up and wait -_ such was military life.

_MIlitary life, military wife, Captain Phasma and her strife..._

The healing drugs _(healing bugs, rugs, thugs)_ have made him less lucid. Molten lava flows through his brain, and, if he looks too closely or thinks too hard, the volcano will erupt and he will burn.

Some days are better than others. Some days he can sit up properly and feed himself, walk around. Some days he can even wander out to the bridge and antagonize the already-dejected general. In the back of his mind, he knows that Hux would love nothing more than to order his execution, but he also knows that Hux is on thin ice as it is.

_When push comes to shove, the Supreme leader would throw both of us into a volcano. But he’d shove Hux first._

Some days he can squash down her ever-present torrent in his mind, ignore it long enough to be a functioning human being.

Today is not one of those days.

He hasn’t seen his Knights in weeks.

His mind feels like a windowpane, and the scavenger is the hurricane outside, wind whipping and rain beating against the glass, waiting until he shatters and breaks…

 _If the window breaks,_ he decides, _I’ll use a piece to slit my throat._

But it never does. He wonders if she’s even trying.

* * *

In his dreams, the Supreme Leader towers over him. His presence - heavy with the Force - weighs down on Kylo like a security blanket.

_Are you ready to complete your training, Kylo Ren?_

Kylo is almost offended that the Supreme Leader has to ask. _Yes!_ He wants to open his mouth and scream, but the words die in his throat, no matter how emphatically he tries. He cannot dredge up sounds, cannot get his mouth to work properly. For a split second, panic overwhelms him.

But the Supreme Leader understands. _It will demand a lot of you, Kylo Ren._

He loves the way his name, his _title,_ sounds, reverberating about the sepulcher of his mind where _Ben Solo_ has been laid to rest. Kylo can feel the scene start to fade; he does his damnedest to communicate, to let the Supreme Leader know that he is a loyal student, that he will rip himself apart if that’s what it takes…

_I am ready. I will do anything._

The Supreme Leader shifts. Kylo can feel his presence move as well; it is like a comforting caress.

_Anything, my student?_

Kylo would rip out his heart for his master; surely the Supreme Leader must know that.

_There will be a lot to give...a lot to take. You must be willing._

He has no mouth, yet he must scream.

* * *

He is in the scavenger’s head again. It’s cloying up his senses, sneaking around his psyche, crushing, corroding, creeping.

Her revulsion hits him full force.

_OUT!_

And she throws him, and it _hurts,_ but he’s stuck in her gravitational field, and she’s strong, but she’s new. She’s _naive._

He wishes he could take a burning-hot knife and cauterize the part of his brain that she’d lodged herself in, perform a scavenger-ectomy and _purge_ himself of her filth.

He exerts what little control he has and lashes out, drags his nails across his face, writhing and screaming and thrashing until he’s out. He wants in her head no more than she wants in his, and if he can’t push her out, maybe he can make her retreat.

He blinks, and he’s back in his cot. He’s restrained - _when did those appear?_ \- and his arms and face and neck _sting_.

 _Bee stings make salty rings,_ he thinks.

He blinks again, grounded by the beeping of a med droid. It’s dabbing at his wounds with an antiseptic, hurting them as they heal. A glance at his arm shows numerous angry scratches, some deep enough that a dull sense of alarm flickered in the back of his mind before being snuffed out.

His arms look emaciated, thinner than he’s used to. Dimly, he realizes that they would be useless in a fight - but he wields the Force, doesn’t he? He could break these restraints on a whim _-_ but the thought is so dissociated from his actions, and his actions are so dissociated from his motivation, that he doesn't move.

The restraints should anger him. The wounds should make him feel ashamed. And yet…

And yet all he can do is stare at the gray ceiling and wonder if the secrets of the universe are coated in the dust that falls through a beam of sunlight.

* * *

Across the galaxy, Rey quakes in fear.

She half-expected to see the marks on her arm, blood seeping through torn skin...but her arms are unmarred: tanned and freckled, covered in light brown hairs. She hugs herself, as if that will make the memory of the scratches disappear.

She feels sick.

She’d made her home among the ruins of the island; the structures were sturdy, and the roof had only needed a little patching. Here, she thought she’d be safe.

The peaceful landscaped tainted by the looming, noxious presence of Kylo Ren lodged into her skull. Luke knows about it - had known about it since the moment Rey arrived - and has since done his best in teaching Rey to protect herself.

She isn’t sure if the training was helping. Was it useless, because he could still invade her mind? Or was it a necessary safe-guard so he didn’t do _more_ damage? Rey shudders at the thought, nausea overtaking her as she remembers how he’d clung to her when she tried to push him out.

The thought makes the skin on her arms prickle into gooseflesh. It’s not that she fears Kylo Ren - she fears him no more than she’d fear any powerful Dark-Sider - it’s that _presence,_ the smell of rotting flesh and festering wounds that seems to accompany him everywhere. It was always faint at first, but then it got into the back of her throat and up her nose and it took _hours_ for it to go away, even after he was gone and her mind was her own once more.

Luke was too kind to suggest that maybe it wasn’t working, that maybe her foray into Kylo’s mind on Starkiller had been the equivalent of inviting a poisonous desert snake into your house. Instead, he pushed her, trained her, and gave her space when she needed it.

Like now.

Rey forces herself to breathe evenly. Maybe she’ll go down to the beach. Maybe the briny sea air would wash away the stench of Kylo Ren.

She makes her way down the steep, winding path that leads to the shore, kicking off her shoes when she reaches the beach. Luke is standing there, bare feet sunk into the sand.

He looks peaceful.

“Good morning,” he greets. “Nightmares?”

Rey looks down, face heating up. “I stopped them, just like you showed me. But…” she resists the urge to hug herself. “They feel so _real.”_

There is sympathy in Luke’s sky-blue eyes; there is peace in the sound of the waves crashing on the sand. Rey feels an unnatural distance from both. “Maybe some time off will do you good,” he suggests.

“Will you come?” Rey has been meaning to ask why he stays on the island, why he secludes himself from his family and friends. The opportunity had never arose.

Luke shakes his head. “One day, perhaps. But I am tied to this island. Give my sister my regards.”

* * *

Days pass, then weeks. Kylo bides his time. He is a creature of the shadows, and there he finds comfort.  Sometimes he feels as if the crescendo in his mind will drive him mad, burst right out from behind his eyes. Sometimes it wraps around him like a warm fog and lulls him to sleep.

And sometimes, it disappears. And when it disappears, Kylo dreams.

_He is alone in a thunderstorm, standing atop a cliff. Behind him are a pack of wolves and beneath him is a tempestuous sea, and he has to decide if he wants to jump or be eaten alive…_

_He is bound to an altar of stone and his very soul is being drained out of him, day after day. He is left alone at night, but the reprieve ends come dawn._

_He is a prisoner, forced to feed a parasite, forced to be subdued, subjected to another’s wills and whims, never his own, never his own, not even his_ blood _is his own…_

_He is bound to an altar of stone and the scavenger is there. She’s pacing around his prone form, eyes filled with an emotion he cannot name. He wants her to kill him - he wants to kill her - but instead she brushes the hair out of his eyes._

_Her hands_ burn, and he snarls, and she disappears.

The scavenger. It has to be the sand-rat that’s doing this to him, forcing him down and making him weak, driving off his Master.

Kylo Ren will not sit idle and let someone else decide his fate.

* * *

In a fit of either absolute madness or absolute clarity he decides to hunt her down, to purge the sand-rat from his mind, to demand she take back whatever she had stuck inside of him. He’ll kill her if he has to - he wants his mind to himself.

(Not to himself, never to himself, the Supreme Leader is omnipresent, but he can feel his psyche crumble under the weight of another, can feel the superego and the id battling inside of him, uncaring if the ego itself is scarred…)

* * *

D’Qar is nice in the springtime. The sun is warm but not harsh, the night air cool but not biting. Rey spends her first day at the Resistance base speaking to Leia and one of her lieutenants, a tall man named Zak. Zak stands behind Leia’s desk, looming over the seated General. Rey doesn’t meet his eyes.

“You weren’t followed?” he asks. “You are certain? And why is Skywalker not with you?”

“Yes,” Rey says. She’s almost annoyed that he even asks. “He said he’s tied to the island,” Rey tells Leia. “But he sends his regards.”

“Do you think he can be counted on to aid the Resistance if it comes to war?” Zak asks, before Leia can speak.

Rey doesn’t know how to answer. She shifts in the metal chair. “He - I never asked…”

Leia waves a hand. “My brother has always been...well. It’s not unlike him to disappear to strange planets.” She smiles to herself, as if remembering a fond memory. Then: “You are welcome to visit, Rey. It’ll be nice to have another Force-sensitive around the base.”

“Indeed,” Zak says, with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. The word echoes in Rey’s mind as she excuses herself. She feels like she needs a shower.

* * *

When he escapes, it is anticlimactic.

He knows the med personnel would expect him to leave in a fit, to destroy equipment and crush a few skulls; it is why he steals away in the dead of night, days before he would have been released.

Snoke is absent - is using his absence as a form of punishment, depriving Kylo of the very lifeblood he needs to survive in this darkness. He feels the ache in his head, in his bones, in his blood. But once he kills the scavenger - once he rips her limb from limb, makes her suffer, makes her _feel_ the torment he’s gone through - then the burgeoning _thing_ inside of him will be gone, and Snoke will have room to roam once more.

He is tense as he leaves in a light cargo freighter - he’d prefer his shuttle, but it’s far too recognizable - knuckles white beneath his gloves. For a split second, he wonders if he will run into Leia.

He banishes the thought, does not allow it to gnaw at his insides, doesn’t admit to himself that slaughtering Han was one thing _(really, Han could’ve survived the saber to his gut, it was the fall that did him in,_ or so Kylo tells himself) but Leia…

Not many know this: Kylo Ren has her eyes. He has spent the majority of his adult life cursing those eyes, ducking his head to avoid mirrors. And if he has to kill her - has to get close enough to look into her eyes (and see his own) - he will falter. It is a secret he keeps buried inside of him, but he knows it in his blood, in his bones.

He forces the thoughts out of his mind.

It will do no good to dwell on them now.

He needs no map; he follows the tug in his mind, goes with his gut. Her mental shields only conceal her so much.

He can sense the chaos before he lands; the battle and bloodshed, the stink of fear. He wonders, idly, if it is hers.

He wonders if she will stink of fear when he kills her.

He lands and exits his shuttle,

He has unwittingly walked into a full-scale siege.

* * *

The battle is never-ending. Rey wonders if this is a punishment, some form of purgatory she must endure. Her arms are burning with the effort of holding her saberstaff, her calves strained from running, stopping, lunging, running again. She slips in the mud, struggles to see in the pouring rain. The boom of the thunder makes her heart leap into her throat; the only time she can see clearly is when lightning strikes.

She’s an adept fighter and always has been, but this…

She knew leaving Luke’s island, even if only for a week, would be a risk. But she’d wanted to see her friends, see Leia, and then…

If she was honest with herself, she wanted to get off the island because of guilt. If Kylo Ren and his cronies had somehow managed to track her and find Luke…

Well. Maybe making an appearance at the Resistance base would throw them off her scent.

_Mistake, mistake, mistake._

She can’t help but wonder if this attack is because of her. She hasn’t see Kylo or his telltale ship; just stormtrooper after stormtrooper (and oh, she hopes Finn is okay, that he can fight this fight), TIE after TIE. The onslaught is endless.

Rey had gotten separated from the main battle; she was cornered, deflecting blaster bolts left and right, trying to find an opening, _anything_ to get back among allies, among people who could cover her...

She disarmed two of the troopers in a sweeping blow, kicked a third in the sternum, _hard,_ but the armor absorbed most of the impact and left her foot stinging from the blow, and she’s almost lost her balance. _Shit._

Still, the trooper was distracted enough that she was able to escape.

The base itself was underground; this was a satellite base, not the main one, and Rey wondered how this had even shown up on the First Order’s radar, wondered if it was because of her…

The pit of dread in her stomach opens up and nearly swallows her whole when he arrives.

* * *

The second he steps out of his ship, he can feel it.

His Knights are here.

His _Knights_ are here.

Nobody had told him. The insubordination, the direct bypassing of his authority - infirm or no, he _should have been told._

Kylo Ren delves into the mind of the first Stormtrooper he finds, rips past the sorry bastard’s defenses and can _see_ it -

He sees himself, emaciated and pathetic, lying at Snoke’s feet…

...he sees Hux and the Supreme Leader speaking. _“Battle Meditation,”_ the Supreme Leader says. _“Kylo Ren will provide the support we need to end any rebellion. There are others...a new one has awakened. We can use that as well.”_

 _Poor bastard,_ the Stormtrooper thinks. He’s guarding the door and can’t help but overhear. _Even a monster like Ren doesn’t deserve that._

...he sees the orders, the questions, the blind obedience; he sees his Knights as they are dispatched; he sees the plan to infiltrate the Resistance, to assassinate the top General and sow the seeds of destruction; he sees the Supreme Leader’s plan,  all through the Stormtrooper’s eyes.

And through the Stormtrooper’s eyes, he sees the truth:

He has been a pawn all along. He hadn’t been the Force Sensitive Snoke had wanted - no, all along it had been -

For a blessed moment, his mind is quiet; it is utterly his own, his _own,_ and the sense of self, of ownership, of autonomy is back, and -

For a blessed moment, it is quiet.

And there is a realization coming, rising like the tide, something Kylo has been trying to ignore for too long, and he -

He kills the Stormtrooper without a second thought, mind reeling. The pain, the suffering, the hurricane beating on his psyche - it had never been the scavenger, had always been -

He can’t bring himself to think it. His entire world has gone sideways in a matter of minutes, and it is all Kylo Ren can do to keep himself from falling apart. All around him the battle is raging, his men are slaughtering and being slaughtered in turn.

Somewhere, someone plans to assassinate the Generals of the Resistance. Somewhere, the scavenger is being hunted. He can see his men, the Stormtroopers, the TIE fighters, but he feels disconnected from the destruction all around him. He stares down at his gloved hands, clenches them into firsts, and...

And he senses it the moment it happens, senses it deep inside of him:

His mother is dead.

The feeling nearly overwhelms him, fogs his senses, make him _ache_ in a way he thought wasn’t possible anymore. And in a split second, in a moment of clarity, he realizes it:

Snoke had dulled his senses, drugged him up for gods-knows-how long, used him as a _pawn,_ as a _pet,_ and he -

And he had gone willingly.

* * *

Rey’s surrounded, being backed into a flooded ravine. She debates jumping - she’s not a strong swimmer but the current can’t be _that_ fast, can it?

Time stops.

Rey isn’t sure what’s happening to her. She cannot breathe, cannot think. She is drowning and she cannot swim to the surface. The only way out is through.

But the deeper she goes, there is a strange comfort in the pain; it becomes familiar.

And she hates it. Oh, how she hates it.

* * *

In this moment Kylo Ren knows one truth: he cannot let her die.

It is the same feeling of dread, deep in his stomach, that he’d felt as he watched Han Solo’s body fall. Then, he hadn’t the time nor the inclination to heed it; now, he doesn't have a choice.

Her life has become entwined with his, her spirit and his molded indelibly together. If she dies, the shock will send him spiraling deeper into the madness that has nearly overtaken him.

It is reflexive and insane, but he puts himself between her and his men. He can feel her consciousness ebb away as she tries to stand; he catches her, clutches her unconscious form to his body with one hand and brandishes his saber with another.

They’re cornered: a cliff to their back and the ocean to his right, faceless enemies encroaching on all sides. He blocks several blaster shots with his saber, arrests their advances with the Force. The ones who manage to get past are quickly dealt with, the air forced out from their lungs.

He is a powerhouse, a force to rival Vader. Without the heavy weight of Snoke’s punishment on his shoulders, he can finally unleash that power.

The dead surround him. The survivors have fled. And he -

He picks up Rey’s saber - Vader’s saber, _Anakin’s_ saber, Luke’s saber - and pockets it.

The rain is still falling. The wind is still blowing. The iron tang of blood is clogging his senses. His shoulder aches under the girl’s dead weight. And Kylo Ren -

For the first time in a decade, he is at peace.

* * *

He left D’Qar as quickly as he’d arrived, the scavenger girl on a cot in the cabin and covered in his cloak. The planet he lands on is mountainous with massive caverns big enough to land the freighter in.

He powers down the ship and finally lets himself relax. For the first time in too long he feels as if he can think clearly. There is no fog he has to sift through, no presence he must accommodate.

With the Supreme Leader gone, his mind feels empty.

He’d lain her on a cot, covered her with his cloak. She’s still resting when he passes her on his way to the cargo hold. In retrospect, hijacking a freighter had been a good move: it was filled with rations and supplies and weapons. Kylo found the crates that held civilian clothes - black pants and shirts - and goes to the ‘fresher to bathe.

He catches his reflection in the mirror and has to do a double-take.

Without his massive cloak covering his frame, it is easy to see how emaciated he is: collarbones looking sharp enough to cut, cheeks hollow, ribs prominent. He’s hardly the powerhouse he thought he was - he wonders if he’d ever been.

He’ll need to start eating properly soon. He’ll need to start _living_ properly soon.

He marvelled at how quickly his priorities had changed. The lucidity in which he saw the world now, without the black-tinted glasses Snoke had weighed his mind down with…

_And why is it now that I’m free? What did it?_

He slips on a shirt, wishing for his cloak but not about to ask the scavenger to hand it over. There’s an unusual vulnerability around her just now, one that he’s all too familiar with. He does not know what to make of her, but he will not push her. Not now. Not after being so thoroughly violated by Snoke.

He can hear her stirring. He steels himself, and walks back to her.

Her hair is damp from the rain and she has mud streaked on her face. She has her back against the wall, her knees tugged up to her chest, his cloak pulled tight around her. Her eyes widen when she sees him.

Kylo can sense the scream on her lips before she can even open her mouth; he puts a finger to his lips and slowly, gently, kneels in front of her. She watches him like a hawk, jaw tensed.

“You have to trust me.” He keeps his voice low, not trusting that they haven’t been followed. He’d slaughtered most of his men, but someone could still be out there.

“Trust you?” she hisses. _Good._ At least she recognized the dire situation. “ _You?_ You invaded my mind. You murdered your father. You _kidnapped_ me. And now - now you want me to trust you?” Rey glares at him as if she could make him combust from willpower alone.

“Who do you think bandaged your wounds?”

Her eyes glance down and her cheeks turn red; he resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“The Resistance is compromised. There is something out there that wants to -” Kylo Ren cuts himself off. How can he put it into words? That horrific feeling, that _thing,_ the way it tortured him and tried to suck the Force out of him? Explain the utter betrayal of his Master, to discover how much more powerful he was, now that he wasn’t being drained to fuel someone else’s life? “The General’s right hand facilitated this. There is a creature out there that would feed on you -”

“That’s _disgusting -_ ”

“It’s the _truth,_ ” and there’s just a hint of a snarl under his hushed words. “Believe me or don’t - I’m not letting that happen to another Force user, sand-rat or no.”

She seemed more comfortable with the insult than with being saved.  “Fine. Say I believe you. Say you’re right -”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it back there,” he snaps. He can’t help the growing frustration. Without Snoke to weigh him down and flatten his affect, he feels as if his blood is trying to crawl outside of his skin. “You wouldn’t have gone down as easy if you’d been at full strength. _He_ was in your head.”

She opens her mouth to argue, closes it again. He can see the cogs turning in her mind.

He stands, because he doesn’t think his legs can take being still a moment longer. She shifts but doesn’t try to stand. Instead she wraps his cloak tighter around her shoulders, and for a moment she looks very small and very sad.

“How old are you?” he asks. The question had been bothering him for some time: sometimes he looks in her eyes and he thinks she’s lived hundreds of lives, but other times - like now - she seems almost childlike.

“Almost twenty,” she tells him. He nods; the more he thinks about it, the more it fits.

He still thinks that she’s a sand-rat. He still resents her for her relationship with Han Solo. But…

Empathy. There is empathy. He doubts that there is another living creature who has been at Snoke’s mercy and survived.

“We can’t trust the Resistance,” he says at length. “They’ve been compromised.”

 _“We?_ You _led_ them to us.”

He grits his teeth. “Yes, _we._ We’re in this together. Snoke’s got a taste of you, and he won’t let you go until he’s used you up.”

“He’s let _you_ go.”

“I escaped.” And he had, hadn’t he? At the time he thought he was escaping the med-bay; at the time he’d thought he was proving himself to the Supreme Leader, showing his eagerness to lobotomize himself if it meant there’d be more room for Snoke in his mind…

“You wanted to _kill_ me,” she points out. She’s still sitting, his cloak still tugged tight around her shoulders. “You wanted…”

“I wanted a lot of things. Snoke...he does that.”

“How do you know he won’t find us?”

“Unaided, his...influence only extends so far.” Since he’d been the aid… “We’ll be okay here. We don’t have a choice - the ship is grounded.”

“I can fix it.”

“You can’t lift your arms without opening another wound, and you’re deluded if you think _I’m_ dressing those again.” She shoots him a dirty look. He returns it.

“Tomorrow,” she says.

He concedes. He leaves her on the bunk and retreats to the cargo hold - there are sleeping bags there, military-grade ones. He’ll fight her for the bed at a different time.

He can feel her eyes bore into the back of his skull as he leaves. If the scavenger has realized it's his cloak she’s tugging around her shoulders like a security blanket, she doesn’t say anything.

* * *

The next day, Kylo Ren wakes up and for two blissful seconds is unaware of what had transpired.

Then he realizes that he’s _moving._

He scrambles out of his sleeping bag and barrels up to the cockpit. “What are you _doing?”_

“Fixed the ship,” Rey says shortly. “Figured I’d get us moving.”

Kylo doesn’t know if he should be upset that she went along with her own plan or grateful she didn’t leave him behind. “You...trust me, then?”

“Not one bit. I believe you, though. At least about Snoke. About...Leia.” Her hands tighten on the controls. “I...the nightmares. That was him, wasn’t it? The stench of death.”

He frowns. “The...what?”

Rey keeps her eyes in front of her. “You know - it followed you everywhere. Like...rotting meat. Decay. Garbage. It’s not as strong anymore.”

He feels his throat tighten. “You know,” he said with forced nonchalance, “I never noticed.”

She doesn’t say anything.

* * *

“We’re stopping for fuel.”

Rey tells Kylo this minutes before landing; she didn’t want to give him too much time to object. But to her surprise he merely nods his assent.

Rey doesn’t know where she’s going - just away. Away from D’Quar and _certainly_ away from Ach-To. Kylo Ren seems content to let her hold the reins - he hasn’t asked to pilot the ship and she hasn’t made the offer to him - but she’s cautious.

And _tired._ She’d been flying most of the day and didn’t trust Kylo - or autopilot - enough to so much as get a wink of sleep, despite the surprisingly comfy bunk back in the cabin. Hopefully the fuel station would have caf.

She studies him out of the corner of her eye. His face is gaunt and sickly pale; stubble is dusting his jaw. His nose is prominent, and at first glance he doesn’t look like either of his parents, but…

She can see Han in the quirk of his lips and Leia in his eyes.

She drags her gaze away. She wants to send a transmission to Finn, but she knows Kylo is right. The Resistance is compromised. And maybe she was a coward for flying away, and maybe she was a traitor to her friends, but…

Finn would be able to make it. He’d survived worse. If she could operate on the outside, get herself away and protect Luke’s secrecy, let Luke know how _bad_ things had become, maybe convince him to come out of hiding...

Rey just had to figure out what to do with Kylo Ren - how to safely contact Luke - how to stay hidden from that godawful _thing…_

But first thing first: food and fuel.

She lands at a rest stop on a desert moon that reminds her of Jakku. She leaves Kylo Ren inside, hoping against hope he won’t hijack the ship. But he doesn’t; he even looks surprised when Rey tosses a ration bar at him. He doesn’t thank her; she doesn’t expect it.

She takes a swig of her canteen of caf. “What systems are left alone?”

He’s chews for a moment, then: “Nowhere. Starkiller Base is in the Unknown Regions. Hosnian Prime is - was in the Core.”

“Fair enough,” she mutters to herself, and sets coordinates for the Mid Rim.

Despite the caf, despite her best efforts, tiredness overtakes her. The call of sleep is heavy and warm, and she falls into it like a stone into a lake.

And like a stone into a lake, she cannot resurface. She keeps falling, unable to swim; the scent around her is pungent, offensive; the very air feels like it’s shocking her skin; the darkness feels _alive,_ and the only thing around her are eyes and teeth, eyes and teeth -

_“Rey!”_

And she’s jolted awake.

She’s in the pilot’s seat, Kylo Ren hovering over her. His heavy hand is on her shoulder, his face etched with concern. The cockpit is crowded as it is, but there’s that scent of _death -_

She jerks out of his grasp and he backs away, but does not take his eyes off her. She’s broken out into a cold sweat, and she -

She storms out of the cockpit and into the fresher, where she vomits. She’s acutely aware that Kylo followed her, that he’s witnessing this indignity, but she doesn't care.

She wants to purge herself from it, from the memory, in any way she can.

He kneels beside her and gathers the loose strands of her hair in his hands, pulls them back. The air is cool against her sweaty neck, and for a split second, she’s grateful.

“What was that?” She knows the answer, but she’s too afraid to say it.

“The Supreme Leader - Snoke.”

“Does that mean he found us?”

 _Us._ There was something weird about saying that, about the sense of camaraderie it implied. But - well, the enemy of her enemy was her friend, no?

“No. If he found you...you’d know. He has...feelers. For Force-sensitives. You probably ran into one. WIthout...aid, there’s not much he can do.”

Rey feels as if she might vomit again. “So you mean he…”

“Yes. You’re lucky you didn’t come into your abilities sooner.” He’s so matter-of-fact about it, as if it _isn’t_ completely terrifying to have a presence that reeks of death in your mind.

_But then…he hasn’t known any different, has he?_

Rey lifts her head, wipes her mouth. “So that’s his deal. Find Jedi and - and what, enslave them? Use them as tools? Break them until they...” she trails off, not wanting to finish that sentence.

A pregnant pause. Then:  “You should clean up. I”ll keep an eye out.”

He leaves in a huff and Rey is left wondering what had just happened.

* * *

Kylo Ren grits his teeth. This is the second time she’s seen right through him and dredged up thoughts and truths that he was too chickenshit to face himself.

He clenches his fists, and wonders if death would be a better alternative to facing reality.

_Han had been right._

* * *

Rey isn’t sure at what point she stopped being so on edge around Kylo Ren. She still doesn’t let him pilot, but she sleeps better. Deeper.

They settle into a routine: flying by day and night, stopping for fuel and food. Sometimes, Rey will stop in a cantina to pick up local and intergalactic gossip. Many planets are on edge - the destruction of the Hosnian system had made the First Order a threat - but the stirrings of war seem far off.

Kylo Ren stays in the ship - he’s too noticeable a face.

They’d landed at a rest stop for the night on some forest planet in the Mid Rim. In the morning, Rey will inspect the ship and attempt to send a transmission to Luke. In the meantime…

The shower on the ship is small, scarcely big enough for one person. But it feels good to bathe, even if she’s using a sliver of rest-stop soap and metallic tasting water.

She showers quickly, not thrilled at the idea of being naked in any capacity near Kylo Ren. She’s not afraid of him, but the vulnerability disarms her and makes her uneasy.

She steps out of the ‘fresher and finds Kylo Ren doing push-ups, clad in only a loose pair of boxers. The sight is so _mundane_ that it gives her pause - and then…

And then Rey realizes how awful his life must’ve been.

She can see every vertebrae, every rib. He is almost grotesque to look at, skin stretched over a skeleton in a caricature of a man, sickly pale from the lack of sunlight and sickly thin by his own design. For a split second, Rey pities him.

She clears her throat and he stops, startled.

“What are you doing?” because she needed to say _something._

“Training. I spent weeks in a med-bay. I need to get back in shape.” He brushes his sweat-damp hair out of his face, and Rey is almost sick with the revelation: his face is fuller than when he’d rescued her, his eyes less sunken, with a healthy flush over his cheeks.

Whatever state Kylo Ren is in now is _eons_ better than what he had been.

Rey swallows and tries to mask her horror. “We’re staying here for the night. Tomorrow I’m going to buy a transmitter…”

“Why not just go to Skywalker yourself?”

Rey gives him a baleful look; he gives a bark of bitter laughter. “So you won’t take me with you to Skywalker but you won’t leave me be. Am I your prisoner?”

Rey clenches her jaw and glares at him gestures wildly at the door. “You’re free to go. I haven’t stopped you from leaving.”

He levels her with a gaze. “Sooner or later you’ll have to stop running.”

* * *

_The sky is dark and the air smells of rot and there’s maggots in her brain._

_“Where are you, little one?”_

_She can feel it worm into her head, through her eye and into her frontal lobe, and oh how she wishes she had an icepick, she’d lobotomize herself to get it out -_

_She’s feverish and ill and she scratches at her face, her eyes, trying to get it out -_

“Rey! Rey, wake _up_!”

Kylo Ren is kneeling over her, hands on her shoulders. “You need to throw him out Rey, _throw him out -_ “

Rey’s fists are clenched in the sheets of the cot, her brow broken out in a cold sweat. There’s a hot ball of lead in her stomach, and too much in her mind -

“I’m going to get him out Rey, _just sit still -_ ”

And his hand is on her forehead and his mind is molded with hers and Rey can feel it, feel Kylo Ren and Snoke and _fear_ and _death_ and she feels as if she might vomit…

And she throws both of them out with equal ferocity, ejects them from her mind and slams down her defenses.

She blinks and the world rights itself. Kylo Ren is kneeling over her, knees on either side of her hips, watching her like she might go postal at any moment. Both of them are panting.

When she speaks, her voice shakes. “What...how…”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows thickly. “You pushed him out. You…” there is a reverence in his tone, an awe in his eyes.  

Rey looks away. She’s exhausted to the bone, feels sick, feels _violated_ -

“I need a shower,” she announces.

Kylo Ren’s eyes linger as she leaves.

* * *

There is one cot in Kylo’s shuttle, and they had been sleeping in shifts, alternating between the bunk and the sleeping bag. Kylo isn’t sure when that stopped and he'd gotten the cot night after night - when Rey’s nightmares became so bad that she was afraid of sleeping, when dark circles formed under her eyes and her movements became sluggish. Kylo detests feeling like a nanny, but when he looks at her…

When he looks at her, he can’t help but remember seeing himself through the Stormtrooper’s eyes. _Not even a monster like Kylo Ren deserves that._ And Rey…

Not a monster. A pain in the ass, a stubborn teenager, a force-sensitive with awe-inspiring talent, but not a monster.

They’re on Tatooine, had been flying between rest stops on the desert planet for a week now. The planet was relatively untouched by the First Order, and was backwater enough that they didn’t draw attention to themselves.

Rey was pacing around the cabin; Kylo was perched on the cot. “Go to sleep,” he tells her. “It’s worse if you don’t,” he adds, when she looks like she might argue.

She huffs but complies, sparing him a baleful look as she slips into the sleeping bag.

“You threw him out once,” Kylo Ren reminds her. “You’ll be able to do it again.” And then, because he’s a prick and he can’t help himself, “Did Skywalker show you that?”

“He showed me that to protect myself from _you,_ ” she snaps.

He narrows his eyes. “I’m _nothing_ compared to the Su- to Snoke.” And then, because he wants her to trust him - and he doesn’t let himself think too hard on that, that he _wants_ her to trust him - “Snoke was using me. To get to you.”

And then, because he’s curious: “Do I still smell of death?”

Rey is silent for so long that he thinks she won’t answer. He settles down.

And then, quietly in the dark, she says, “No.”

* * *

Rey doesn’t know if the nightmare is hers or Kylo’s, and it probably doesn’t matter. She can feel them both there, consciousness mingling -

_He looks up and he sees her and she’s illuminated by light, she smells like vanilla and jasmine..._

_...she sees him and there’s pity, he’s dust and bones and forgotten memories…_

Their hands are touching - when did that happen - and his are cold, so cold…

_She looks in his eyes and there he is, chained to a stone altar, being drained of his energy, of the Force, of his soul. She walks around the altar, trailing her fingers over the cold stone. There are no lights in this room; the windows are small and several dozen feet above eye level._

_This is a prison._

_Rey stops at his side, peers down at his face. He looks up to her, and he whispers, “kill me.”_

_It’s a plea, but Rey cannot do it. There is something in her chest - sorrow, pity,_ empathy...

“Kill him,” _a voice orders. Suddenly Rey has a dagger in her hand and she smells the death and decay and sickly rotten scent._

_Rey raises her hand…_

_...only to set the knife down on the altar and brush the hair out of Kylo Ren’s face._

_To add salt to the open wound - spiteful, stubborn thing that she is - she plants a chaste kiss on his mouth._

_His lips are as cold as a corpse._

_And then the death and decay are around her, up her nose and in her mouth, and she’s suffocating, drowning, dying -_

_And all Rey sees is a blue alien with a warped face and she screams, she_ **screams -**

* * *

Kylo Ren wakes to find Rey hovering at his bedside.

The lights are on, and she looks as bad as he feels.

The panic is fresh in his blood, the fear alive in his mind, and when he blinks he sees her being eaten alive by that _thing_ that had been his master.

He sits up and looks at her, and she bites her lip, and wordlessly - he shifts. It’s an invitation, a question, an offer of comfort. She looks as hunted as he feels, and he wonders if she had been plagued by nightmares as well.

Tentatively, she sits. He wants to reach out - nonfatal human contact is almost foreign to him, but he has memories of the comfort it brings.

Snoke hadn’t been able to take _that_ away.

When she swings her legs up and settles back against the wall, their shoulders touch. So do their legs. She doesn’t move away and neither does he and -

For now, in the dark, it is enough.

“Kylo?” And this is the first time she’s said his name, and it sends something through him, something foreign and human.

He swallows before answering. “Yes?”

“We need to find Luke.”

* * *

One more day on Tatooine; one more night of fitful sleep, of a shared bunk, of just-barely brushed shoulders. When she falls asleep and her head falls against his chest, that unfamiliar human feeling runs through him again.

That morning - though she doesn't share the coordinates with him, and he does not blame her - they load up the ship to leave. Kylo erases the two of them from the rest stop employees’ memories - a meager precaution, but one he’s glad to take.

He finishes. Rey’s standing in the shade of the ship, stretching her legs before they depart. They won’t stop until they reach Luke.

He walks up to her. “All done.”

She says,  “We need to kill Snoke.”

It takes a moment for what she’s said to sink in. “You want to...kill...Snoke.”

“You don’t?”

He opens his mouth, then stops. Truthfully, he’s never considered that before. He never thought it was an option.

“You know he’s legendary. Even _I_ don’t know where he came from. He’s - he’s like a _god,_ Rey. You have no idea what he can do…”

Rey shrugs. “I don’t like the idea of something - and that’s what he is, a _thing -_ being in my head. I don’t like...what’s he’s done. To either of us.”

 _Us._ Kylo decides he likes the sense of camaraderie it denotes. There’s a glint in her eyes and a tilt to her chin, and he knows she’s already made up her mind.  

He exhales sharply. _Shit._ “So you’re….what? Proposing deicide?”

Rey grins. “How hard can it be?”

He looks at her then, the rising sun behind her looking almost like a halo. It blurs her edges, makes her hair bleed gold. And he finds himself almost-grinning back. The idea is so ridiculous, so absurd, so _simple -_ how had it never occurred to him? - but it’s brilliant, and stupid, and for the first time in forever he finds himself _hoping._

“Fine,” he says at length. Rey sticks out her hand; he clasps it in his own.

Her hands are warm, and she smells like springtime.  

**To be continued...**

**Author's Note:**

> As always, let me know what you think<3


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